Made You Up: Chapters 25–34

A huge staircase occupied the middle of the foyer (a foyer, they had a freaking foyer), splitting off in two directions upstairs.

He shook his head and watched the doorway, and a second later a black-haired girl in paisley pajamas stepped into the foyer.

It was all so disturbingly normal—besides the sheer amount of money that must have gone into it—that for a moment I thought the whole place might be a hallucination.

“Yeah, but you’re fine doing it if it’s anyone else.” Miles shoved his glasses up to rub his eyes. “Bit hypocritical, if you ask me.”

But then I heard the unearthly shrieks coming from Mr. Gunthrie’s room.

He gingerly lowered himself into his seat, wincing as he settled, and began scratching himself all over.

Miles gave me a shrewd look. “You’re going to shut up and listen?”

“Yeah. So, sorry if I come across callous sometimes. Or, I don’t know, defensive. Most of the time I’m just confused.”

His morning announcements were short and curt, and he didn’t say anything about the scoreboard.

I knew Miles was a big boy who could take care of himself, but if there was ever a time to put my finely honed sense of paranoia to good use, it was now.

Miles dipped his chin and stared balefully at me over his glasses, shoving the coin deep into his pocket.

I didn’t eat mine; I stacked it on top of the scarf and the figurines in a pile next to my backpack, with the excuse that I’d eat it later. I probably wouldn’t. Not because I didn’t trust Miles. He just wasn’t as attuned to food poisons as I was.

For a fleeting moment I wondered if he thought she looked like the seven-year-old me, standing next to the lobster tank with a seven-year-old him, asking for help in freeing the lobsters.

There was no doubt she’d have whole treasure troves of information about Scarlet and McCoy.

He perked up, but still looked apprehensive, like if he said, “Really?”

That voice was so ambivalent sometimes.

When Miles explained things that happened at school, embellishing small facts and details, I’d jump in and correct him.

“But Empy was never interested in him, oh no,” June continued. “I remember the day she started dating the captain of the football team, because when Daniel went to his locker after school that day, all of his things were scattered in the hallway, torn up. We all knew Richard did it, but no one could prove it. And he groveled at Empy’s heels until the day she died.”

She came back for our five-year reunion, and was standing under the scoreboard, talking about her glory days and her father’s philanthropy, and it fell.

After this semester, it wasn’t like she had any friends. Pariah was practically tattooed on her forehead.

“Does he have any friends? I know he’s not the easiest to like, and I know he thinks people are...well, cumbersome to deal with, but there’s someone for everyone, and I didn’t know if...”

We’d been breaking into arguments all year, teetering on a seesaw of perpetual imbalance, because he was always either one way or the other.

Miles snorted derisively.

You are dreaming an impressively lucid dream, and you will wake up soon, and it will be okay.

I gazed stonily back at him.

I almost fell asleep standing up, and Miles had to prod me out of my stupor when it was time to go.

“Thanks again,” he said to the old man. Miles’s voice was weak, brittle.

He feigned reluctance well as he slipped the jacket back on.

Saying I wasn’t ready for it was an understatement.

I was mostly joking, but he pulled back, bashful.